Martin walked towards his bathroom, hyperventilating. His palms were sweaty, knees weak, arms were heavy. He stared at his reflection in the mirror, and grimaced in disgust as he pulled his mom’s spaghetti out of the pocket on his shirt. Mom’s spaghetti were everywhere: in his pockets, on his sweater, in his mouth, in his hands. He tried to swallow them all, but it was impossible. He slammed them against the mirror, trying hard not to cry. He collapsed next to the toilet and puked mom’s spaghetti on its closed cover, seizures taking over his body for the next three minutes.

When he walked out of the bathroom, he was nervous, but on the surface he looked calm and ready. Then he felt a dark presence in his bedroom. He did a double take when he found Plastic Pinocchio crouching atop his wardrobe.

“Hello, Martin. How are you?” his mind voice said as he grunted and shook his head.

“Plastic Pinocchio… This is my dream, but you aren’t part of my imagination. Why are you here?” Havoc asked, noticing for the first time that he looked human.

“I have been quite busy since Discord killed me. Luna should have told him about me. About what she saw. Then he wouldn’t have released me.”

“Release? He killed you.”

“My physical body was just a vessel for my true form. Only Luna knew this, after she took a peek into my dreams and found the truth. I only realized it after Discord destroyed my body, releasing me from its limitations. Now I live in the Dream World, and my power over it grows exponentially. Soon, not even Luna will be able to stop me.”

“You're scaring me, man.”

Plastic Pinocchio laughed. “Don’t worry, I haven’t walked into your dreams to harm you. The Dream World is a strange place. It’s like a reflection of the physical world, but unreliable in many ways. Any building that isn’t decades old doesn’t exist here, and anything that has been destroyed recently won’t permanently reflect the damage here until months have passed. It is… hard to change things from the physical world from here, but it can be done. Every living being that is sleeping can be reached from here, even animals; and once I get into someone’s dreams I can talk to them, like we’re doing right now… I think I can do much more than that, but I’m not sure. Maybe I can kill people in their sleep? Twist their memories and thoughts without them ever realizing? Drive them insane with nightmares? It’s too soon to tell.”

“Why are you telling me all of this? I mean, I enjoy exposition as much as everybody else, but why tell me of all people?”

“You also have the power to enter the Dream World and force changes in it, either because of being a draconequus or because you naturally have that talent. Right now, you are the only person I know who is asleep and has this ability, so I need you as a training partner.”

“A training partner,” Havoc repeated, finding it hard to believe.

“Yeah, someone to practice with, to get used to my powers in a safe environment. You’ll benefit from this, too. The Dream World offers so many possibilities…”

“Yeah and you’ll probably fuck me up if I refuse,” Havoc blurted, cursing himself for forgetting how easy it was to voice your thoughts by mistake in the Dream World.

Plastic Pinocchio shrugged. “A guinea pig is nearly as good as a willing partner.”

“Fuck you, man. Alright, I accept.”

Plastic Pinocchio lunged forward, pushing Havoc through his dream into a strange version of Ponyville. “You won’t be of any use for me unless you know the basics. Wake up, and tonight we’ll begin. In order to come to the Dream World, force yourself into sleep while thinking about this place. You shouldn’t have trouble with it.” Plastic Pinocchio pushed Havoc, but instead of falling he woke up. Worried, he looked around, but found that nothing had changed since he fell asleep.

“Oh! You’re awake!” he heard, and turned to see Twilight Sparkle walking towards him. “I was wondering if I should levitate both of you to guest rooms, it’s almost night time already.”

Havoc mumbled as he noticed that Screwball was still asleep. Then he shook his head to clear his thoughts. “What a day,” he said. “I still don’t know how you managed to defeat Tirek. He took away all the alicorn power, and that rainbow thing couldn’t be the Elements of Harmony. I know about the Tree and how you had to put them back in it to stop that OTHER thing that Discord did and could have ruined everything.”

“The Tree of Harmony spawned a closed chest when we put the Elements back on it. We managed to find the last key and opened it just after Tirek stole the alicorn magic. Inside we found this new friendship-based power that allowed us to save the day.”

“It’s always a last-minute miracle for you all, isn’t it?” he asked as he got up and began to look around the room.

“It may seem that way,” she said. “But I prefer to think that friendship and good always triumphs over hate and evil.”

“Ugh. Well, at least you got this neat palace after all of this, right?”

“Yeah!” she said, but she didn’t seem too convinced about it.

“And I guess that this new rainbow magic you used is now available for whatever crisis comes next.”

“Probably, yes.”

“I still can’t believe the Tree of Harmony spawned a giant crystal-palace-tree thing fully furnished and all. Like, it’s even got drawers!” he said, opening and closing one for emphasis. “I would have never thought the magic of harmony and friendship and whatever would be a good interior designer.”

“There is much we still don’t know about the Tree of Harmony,” Twilight admitted. “I would love to study it and learn more about it, but the risk of damaging it is just too big.”

“I want to apologise,” Havoc said, suddenly changing topic. “For what I said the last time we met. I wasn’t thinking straight, and I lashed out. I’ve had plenty of time to think about it, and I have realized that you did nothing wrong. I’m sorry, princess Twilight. Will you forgive me for being an idiot?”

Taken aback by Havoc’s unexpected statement, Twilight remained silent for a few seconds before finding her words. “You had your reasons for that. Luna told me your version of what happened with the Mirror Pool a few days after she returned from Gem Fido. I never even considered that I could be killing real ponies when I sent the copies to the pool. I shouldn’t have blindly chosen the first opportunity to solve the problem without thinking it through. So, it should be me asking for forgiveness. If you ever meet Pinkie’s last copy, please tell her how sorry I am and that everypony in Ponyville will welcome her with open arms.”

Havoc met her gaze for a few seconds before tearing up. “I want to hug you so badly right now. I had forgotten what a wonderful pony you are.” She still is best pony, after all.

Twilight laughed politely, a bit ashamed after receiving such a compliment. “I’m so glad that we can leave that behind us. Friends?” she added, extending her hoof.

“Friends,” he said, firmly shaking her hoof. “Now, I really, really need to send a message to princess Luna. If I don’t, something potentially worse than Tirek could be released. I’m deadly serious about this.”

“What?! Why didn’t you say it sooner?! SPIKE!!!”

Spike ran towards the source of Twilight’s panicked voice. “What’s going on?!”

“Take a letter, write whatever Havoc says and send it to Luna!”

Spike looked around. “I don’t know where anything is in here!”

“I’ve got this,” Havoc said, making parchment and a pencil appear with a snap of his fingers. “Now, write this:
Dear Princess Luna,
Discord killed Plastic Pinocchio. Now he roams free in the Dream World and is growing stronger with each passing second. Please do something about him before he can cause real damage.
Your loyal servant,
Sir Havoc.”

Spike took a deep breath and burned the letter, the ashes quickly leaving the palace. “What in Equestria is a Plastic Pinocchio?”

“Right now he’s a thing that lives in the dreams and can kill anyone in their sleep, and who knows what else. I hope Luna can bring him down now that she knows what he’s up to.”

“Yes, please. We don’t need another Equestria-ravaging monster right now,” Spike said. “Tirek was enough, thank you.”

“Agreed,” Screwball said, revealing that she was awake.

“Screwball, how do you feel?” Havoc asked, worried.

“My head hurts as if I had the worst hangover in the world and I had been beaten with a hammer for good measure. I also think that Discord should be turned to stone and, after I have died of old age, broken into pieces with a sledgehammer. Other than that, I’m fine.”

“If it’s any consolation, Luna said that Discord is going to be punished for what he did, and both her and her sister were furious because he didn’t tell them about you.”

Screwball briefly smirked. “That will have to do, I guess. In any case, this has been the last straw for me. I can never become an earth pony again, but from now on I’m going to start anew without Discord’s influence. I guess I could try to follow my cutie mark and become a coach or something baseball related.”

“Actually, if you don’t mind, I have a suggestion,” Twilight said, making Screwball notice her for the first time. “If I understood right, you are the only chaos pony in Equestria. If you could write down all you know about chaos magic, you could greatly help ponykind understand it. It’s been near impossible to convince Discord to share his knowledge, and the few things he’s ever said make no sense.”

“You know what? I agree, princess. If Discord doesn’t want ponies knowing how his magic works, I’m going to do my very best so everypony from Princess Celestia to the most illiterate farmer foal knows all there is to know about chaos magic.”

“Well, I can’t say I agree with your motives, but I’ll take what I can get,” Twilight said. “Havoc, would you help us? I’m sure you know as much about magic as Screwball.”

“I’m afraid I can’t. During this Tirek crisis, I realized that living in Canterlot is not what I need. I’m going to leave Equestria to explore the world and find adventure outside its borders.” Twilight accepted Havoc’s explanation, and after a series of farewells he flew towards Canterlot.

When he reached it, the Sun had already set, and life seemed to have returned to normal in most of the city. so he went directly towards the palace. The guards quickly pointed him towards Luna’s location when he asked them, and he found her asleep, her horn shining brightly. Suspecting she was fighting Plastic Pinocchio, he forced himself asleep next to her.

Using what Plastic Pinocchio taught him, he entered the Dream World, and was greeted by an explosion next to him. “Fuck!”

“Havoc, what are you doing here?” Luna exclaimed as she appeared before him, looking tired.

“I’m trying to help?”

“You can’t help, Plastic Pinocchio has grown far too strong for you! If you hadn’t warned me, he might have become stronger than me. I’ve been fighting him for an hour, but destroying his body just delays him. I fear he may be somehow merging with the essence of dreams.”

“So how do we beat him?” Havoc asked, worried.

“We need to find his real body. It must be hidden somewhere, slowly becoming one with the Realm of Dreams. Destroying it will kill him for real. Stay close to me and don’t try anything, your chaos magic won’t be of much use in this fight.”

“Let’s go to the place where I found him dead, maybe the real one is there.”

“Betraying me so early?” a voice said from behind them. “How rude of you, Havoc.”

Luna twisted faster than it should be physically possible, and when Havoc followed her movement he found she was staring at Plastic Pinocchio. The silent stare continued for several seconds until Plastic Pinocchio suddenly turned into black tar. “Another one down. I don’t know how many I can defeat before I tire myself out. We have to hurry.”

Havoc led Luna to the place where, in the physical world, he and Knightbane found Plastic Pinocchio’s corpse. More copies attacked them along the way, but when they finally arrived at the place they didn’t find anything unusual.

“Well, it was worth a try,” Havoc said.

“Wait, I think that… Yes, I can feel a trace,” Luna muttered, focused on something. “I might be able to find him from this place. You must wake up now, Havoc. The fighting will surely be intense, and I can’t babysit you through it.”

Luna’s eyes glowing with white light was the only warning before Havoc suddenly woke up. “I really, really hope this will work,” he said as he took a deep breath and tried to physically teleport to the place he had been at while dreaming.

The teleport took away half of his magic, and when he appeared in the Dream World he was temporarily overwhelmed by the amount of control he had over it. Being there in the flesh, he had several times the control he had while dreaming, and he could also use his magic freely. Luna turned around and stared at him in shock.

“Havoc?! Do you have any idea what you have just done?!” she cried.

“Back when I was human, I read a book series which had a World of Dreams which worked pretty much exactly like this one. Since going to that world in the flesh granted the characters unrivaled power compared to the sleeping ones, I thought that the same would apply here.”

“It is wrong! This Realm is not meant to have physical people in it! Leave before you damage it!”

“I’ll leave as soon as Plastic Pinocchio is defeated,” he promised, realizing how worried Luna was about what he had done.

“Then let us hurry;” she said as she flew away.

Plastic Pinocchio’s copies attacked them increasingly often, but between Luna’s mastery and Havoc’s raw power due to being there “in the flesh”, there was little they could do to stop them. Eventually, there were so many copies that it was hard to continue flying forward without bumping into them.

“We’re almost there!” Luna said as she kept destroying all the copies directly in her way. “It’s our luck that, the more copies he makes, the weaker they are!”

“Yeah, they’re just cannon fodder,” Havoc replied, using both his magic and his control over the Dream World to fight them back.

After destroying a dozen of copies directly in front of them, they saw it. Plastic Pinocchio’s real body no longer resembled his previous one. He had become something similar to a willow tree, but fleshy and hideous. Its roots were all over the place, pulsating and slowly spreading over the land. Its bark was bleeding and seeping pus, which formed viscous puddles that billowed an acrid smoke. Instead of leaves, it had stripes of veiny and pale skin. From its branches hung fruits that looked like human heads, and every few seconds one would fall and grow into another copy of his humanoid form. The air itself was tainted by it, the stench of sulfur and putrefaction so powerful it had a physical presence to it.

“Oh God this is disgusting,” he cursed as his eyes began to tear up. It took all of his willpower not to vomit.

“This place is where Twilight Sparkle fought Tirek. He is taking the energies that the Dream World uses to change in order to reflect the new reality to empower himself,” Luna explained, seemingly unfazed. “This is even worse than I thought. At this rate, he’ll take over the entire Realm in a matter of days, and then it’ll be easy for him to seize the minds of those who fall asleep. After that, there will be no power in the world capable of stopping him. He must be destroyed here and now.”

“Cover me!” Havoc said began to cut down the “tree” with Infernal Soul, but soon found that it would take him a long time of chopping. “This tree won’t just let me cut it! What do I do?!”

“You’re just using your physical abilities! Combine it with your domain over this Realm!” Luna explained as she kept the horde of Plastic Pinocchios at bay.

Following Luna’s advice, Havoc hit again, this time cutting deeply. The whole thing began to twist and shake as blood black and thick as tar oozed from the wound. Havoc felt a burning pain wherever the blood touched him, but shielding himself was impossible, as that would reduce the effect of his attacks. As he kept on cutting the monstrous thing, the pain grew stronger until it was all he could feel. Of all the painful things he had experienced, being coated in Plastic PInocchio’s blood was easily one of the five most painful ones, but not as painful as having part of his soul erased by balefire or being dragged into Equestria by Disharmony’s magic.

Eventually, he swung his axe but hit only air. The blood had blocked his ears and destroyed most of his auditive system, so only when he willed it away and healed his wounds did he hear the eerie shriek the tree made as it toppled down.

“Timber!” Havoc shouted, a lumberjack outfit appearing on him. A few seconds later, a dozen of Plastic Pinocchios attacked him, their collective dominion over the dreams managing to damage him. Startled, Havoc fought them back and killed six of them one after the other, until Luna joined him and together they killed the remaining ones.

“Excellent work! We’ve dealt a fatal blow to him!” Luna exclaimed. “Look! His roots have stopped growing!”

Indeed, the roots were no longer pulsating and spreading, but withering and disappearing altogether. Luna began to release pulses of energy, creating an expanding sphere around herself where all the manifestations of Plastic Pinocchio were gone.

“Havoc, I feel a powerful remnant of his essence a couple of meters ahead,” Luna said as her eyes glowed with white light. “Take care of it while I make sure not to leave a single trace of him here. Even the most minuscule part could be enough for him to fully recover.”

Nodding, Havoc levitated forward, soaring above the felled trunk until he found something. The branches of the tree had formed a sphere, and a faint glow originated from its center. Havoc prepared to destroy them with his axe, but they bursted into flames on their own. This revealed a glowing Plastic Pinocchio, who stared at Havoc before pulling out his mask. His real face was completely human, but his eyelids had been sewn shut, and had crude drawing of eyes on them.

“You’re smarter than I gave you credit for,” Plastic Pinocchio said. “By entering here in the flesh, you have done what Luna didn’t dare to. That won’t help you, though. For you see, I am also here in the flesh. When my vessel was destroyed, my true body traveled here in the form of smoke. Everything you’ve seen so far were just constructs sustained by my domain over the Dream. Weak, but they were needed for me to grow stronger. You two stopped the process early, but I’ve already become more powerful than you could even imagine.”

Plastic Pinocchio’s mental assault was beyond anything Havoc had faced yet in the Dream World. It almost managed to erase him from existence itself in an instant, and the only reason Havoc managed to survive was because he devoted all of his mind to reaffirming that he existed. Noticing that the difference in power wasn’t enough for a quick kill, Plastic Pinocchio tried to attack Havoc’s mind and magically lobotomize him.

Terrified, Havoc endured to onslaught, the notion of fighting back laughable. One slip-up, and Plastic Pinocchio would destroy his mind, leaving him permanently comatose. The attack was incredibly complex, with dozens of different changes to his mind and body attempting to become real. It was like trying to balance too many spinning plates on poles, knowing that eventually one would fall and break.

After what felt like days to Havoc, Luna’s magic reached his position, acting as a layer of protection against Plastic Pinocchio’s attack. This allowed Havoc to free a small part of his mind to the task of walking back, so he would get closer to Luna. Seeing this, Plastic Pinocchio jumped towards Havoc and pinned him down with more strength than his human frame should have.

Being inside Luna’s magic, Plastic Pinocchio’s power became even less dangerous, so Havoc could fight back. Keeping his defenses up, he began to launch counterattacks of his own, trying to damage or disable Plastic Pinocchio. At the same time, they wrestled physically, trying to harm each other so the pain would reduce their focus and make their control over the Dream World weaker. Plastic Pinocchio opened his mouth, and scorpions came out of it, stinging Havoc as soon as they landed on his body. Havoc teleported, but doing so made his defenses falter, and Plastic Pinocchio managed to heavily damage his body in an instant. When he appeared next to Luna, most of his bones were broken, and he was missing his tail and left wing.

“Turns out he’s here in the flesh, too,” he told Luna as he healed his bones and stopped the internal bleeding, not bothering to regrow his missing extremities. “I can’t beat him alone.”

Luna closed her eyes for a second, and when she opened them she looked at Havoc with such intensity that he took a step back. “Don’t die. I’ll return as soon as possible.”

“What?!” Havoc said, but she vanished without answering.

Plastic Pinocchio attacked him again in full force. “Your princess has abandoned you. She won’t give up the Dream World so easily, so she must be up to something. I’ll get rid of you now. It’s a shame that you’ll die like this, we could have worked together to take over the world.”

Havoc didn’t understand any of his words, too focused on not being destroyed. Plastic Pinocchio was hitting him even harder than before, and Havoc knew that, if Luna didn’t arrive in the next two minutes, he would be dead by the time she did.

“I have changed my mind,” Plastic Pinocchio said. “Instead of killing you, I’m going to turn you into my slave. In only a few seconds I’ll break through your pitiful defenses, and change your mind to make you fanatically loyal to me.”

“THOU SHALT NOT!” both of them heard, so loud it halted their fight. Havoc looked towards the source of the voice and found Luna, this time there in the flesh.

“¡Hija de puta!” Plastic Pinocchio cursed, trying to get away. However, Luna’s horn glowed and he simply disappeared, as if he had never existed.

“Holy shit,” Havoc muttered, shocked. Luna had crushed Plastic Pinocchio as if he was an insignificant insect in her path.

“Let us return to the waking world, Havoc,” Luna ordered, and they both teleported back to Luna’s chambers.

“For a moment, I thought I wouldn’t make it. Thanks for saving the day, princess!” Havoc’s euphoria died when he noticed Luna’s frown. “What’s wrong?”

“Havoc, entering the Realm of Dreams in the flesh is evil for a reason. Each time you teleport there, a part of what makes you pony, or human, is lost in the way. That is especially dangerous for us immortals. As centuries come and go, all those times you go there in the flesh, rare as they might be, eventually pile up. In the end, what’s left of you is a shadow of your former self, addicted to the amount of power you have while inside the Realm of Dreams. When the Elements restored me, I promised myself never to return there in the flesh unless the survival of the world itself was at stake. Today I’ve broken that oath.”

“But you said that he would take over the world, how does this count as breaking your promise?”

“There are powerful artifacts that would have given me enough power to destroy him while dreaming. However, gathering and activating them would have taken too long. You would have died.”

“Oh. I…”

“Save it. You risked your life for me in Sharp Ruby. What kind of pony would I be if I had abandoned you for my own sake? It’s me who should have been better prepared for an attack of that magnitude in the Dream, especially now with you humans and your strange powers.”

“Still, I’m really grateful for what you did for me. I have to ask, though… How could you kill him? I thought players can’t kill us unless it’s self-defense.”

“If only the rules were so straightforward… I was allowed to kill him the moment he tried to take over the Dream. Be careful with that. Making assumptions about the rules of this Game has gotten quite a few humans killed already.”

“Good to know. Oh, before I forget… I’m planning to leave Canterlot in a few days.”

“Oh. May I ask why?”

“After all this Tirek and Plastic Pinocchio ordeal, I’ve realized that I’ve stopped growing stronger in Canterlot. So, I want to travel the world to make things happen and learn from the experience.”

“You’re free to do as you wish, but please do ensure that you leave everything tied up before leaving. Find a proper replacement for your position as the protector of Equestria’s diamond dogs, and meet with my sister when everything is back to normal. She has taken a liking to assigning quests to humans. You may leave my chambers now, sir Havoc. It’s due time I relieve my sister so she can rest.”

“As you wish, princess. And thank you again for saving me.”

Havoc lazily flew towards his house, wanting to have a peaceful night of sleep to recover from all the crazy shit that had happened.

Author's Notes:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SW-BU6keEUw